Aryna Sabalenka Addresses Cannabis Distraction at US Open
Aryna Sabalenka is used to handling heavy hitters. On Friday in New York, she had to deal with a different kind of smoke.
The world No 1 breezed past Uzbekistan’s Kamilla Rakhimova in straight sets on Louis Armstrong Stadium, racing into a 3-0 lead and never loosening her grip on the third-round match. Yet the most striking pause in her routine win came not from her opponent, but from the stands – or somewhere just beyond them.
Early in the first set, as she stepped up to serve at 30-0 in her second service game, Sabalenka backed off the baseline, wrinkled her nose and walked toward the chair.
“Someone is smoking weed,” she told umpire Eva Asderaki-Moore, gesturing towards the air. “Would you mind to… because it’s so strong.”
Play stopped briefly. The smell lingered. Then Sabalenka reset, blocked it out and went back to dismantling Rakhimova.
The incident tapped into a now-familiar subplot at Flushing Meadows. The sweet, skunky drift of cannabis has become an unwelcome extra on the US Open programme in recent years, with players repeatedly mentioning the distraction. Smoking is banned inside the grounds, but with recreational cannabis legal for adults 21 and over in New York, the vast Flushing Meadows-Corona Park that wraps around the tennis complex often provides the source. When the wind turns, the courts catch it.
Sabalenka explained later that this was not her first encounter with the smell during the tournament, but it was by far the strongest she had experienced mid-match.
“That strong, yeah. Also, because it was a bit windy,” she said. “I don’t know if it was coming from the crowd or was from the outside because the wind blows it into the stadium.”
She was careful to draw a line between personal freedom and professional focus. Her issue was not with people lighting up, but with where and when.
“I was like, Guys, you can do whatever, you can smoke whatever, you can relax as much as you can, but please do not do it around the tennis courts,” she said with a smile. “It’s a bit tricky to handle that smell while you’re trying to compete at your best.”
The request was simple: enjoy the evening, just not right next to elite sport.
“I just hope they are a bit more aware of that stuff,” Sabalenka added, before laughing as reporters circled back yet again to the topic. “Come on, guys. I think there is nothing else to say about weed. I’m just asking people not to smoke it next to the tennis court.”
On the scoreboard, the episode barely registered. Sabalenka stayed locked in, her power game intact, her march through the draw uninterrupted. On a swirling, windy night in New York, the top seed proved she can ride out just about anything – even when the breeze brings more than just a change of direction.
